Posts tagged: mplayer

With the latest experimental release of get_iplayer PVR Manager you can now use to browse and play almost any BBC iPlayer programme directly from VLC‘s playlist. This functionality of get_iplayer PVR Manager should work on Linux/Unix, MacOSX and Windows.

Just download and run get_iplayer PVR manager as described in yesterdays post

Next, using VLC to open a URL such as:

http://127.0.0.1:1935/playlist?PROGTYPES=liveradio

You will get an automatically generated playlist for the programme type you selected.

Valid programme types are:

tv

radio

livetv

liveradio

Open the playlist in the vlc GUI and you will see all of the available programmes.

Just click on one and it will start playing after a few seconds.

There are many more examples and detailed usage in the comments at the top of the get_iplayer.cgi script if you are interested.

I haven’t tried opening the playlists in anything other than mplayer and vlc so far. When I get a chance I’ll try them out on the Squeezebox also.

Let me know if you get this working on any other players or if you find any other novel uses for it.

Update: Now works on windows except for realaudio channels. Ensure you use flvstreamer v1.8h or later.

To directly stream a selected live programme in all OSes (except Win32) you can use:

get_iplayer --stream 80001 --player='mplayer -cache 256 -'

Where –player can refer to any player command than can play programmes from STDIN. Or simply use:

get_iplayer --stream 80001 | mplayer -cache 256 -

The advantage of the –player option is that it can be saved in your default options as follows:

get_iplayer --prefs-add --player='mplayer -cache 256 -'

Then you can just stream via mplayer using:

get_iplayer --stream 80001

( –stream is just a synonym for –stdout –nowrite )

To record a live stream use:

get_iplayer --get 80001

Specifying modes has changed a little. –amode has become –radiomode and –vmode is now –tvmode. Additionally, –modes=<modelist> can be used to set a general default set of modes for all programme types.

The only major thing I’ve not been able to get working is direct streamed playback under native Windows. If anyone knows why it won’t work or has a fix or workaround please let me know! I’ve tried with ‘vlc -‘, ‘ffplay -‘ and ‘mplayer -‘ and all seem to just fail.

After many requests I have eventually given in and added Live stream support for BBC iPlayer TV and Radio. So now you don’t need to playback TV in a browser – you can use the video player of your choice. The Radio streams are of fantastic quality especially when not played back in adobe flash player – well done BBC! The Flash AAC radio quality is between 128-192 kbps and the TV is either 512×288 or 640×360 resolution at between 512-800 kbps.

Remember that you do need a TV License to legally record or watch any Live TV streams in the UK. The Live support does require flvstreamer v1.8 or later(rtmpdump v1.6 is not as reliable with these streams). The below examples assume that the tool is in your path already. If not then add it using ‘–flvstreamer=/path/to/flvstreamer’. As a side note, rtmpdump 1.5/1.5a, albeit somewhat unreliable, will work only if you want to record the live streams or listen to Live Radio – direct TV playback does not want to work on those older versions.

Please not that the recording and streaming will not stop after the end of a programme – it is perpetual.

Other Media Players

The recorded live streams will playback on any media player that can decode flv streams. So far I’ve successfully managed to get them playing back on xine, vlc and mplayer on Linux. I’ve not tried the various players on Windows or MacOSX.
I tried to playback th live TV streams directly with those players and found that both mplayer and xine were successful. I had trouble getting vlc to work without stuttering because I couldn’t figure out how to set the buffer/cache size. For xine use: ‘| xine stdin:/’.
The direct audio playback seems to work on mplayer and vlc only although vlc does result in slightly glitchy playback compared with mplayer.
Let me know below if you manage to get other media players to work.

Today I managed to get access to a Windows XP desktop and thought I’d try out the latest get_iplayer Windows Automated Installer. I have to say I am really quite impressed. The Installer is maintained and put together by Simon Dible. I just downloaded it, ran it and it automatically downloaded and installed all of the get_iplayer support packages such as rtmpdump, mplayer, lame, ffmpeg and Strawberry Perl (an open source perl for Windows that is not broken like ActivePerl!).
This really takes all the pain out of using get_iplayer on Windows. I just had to fire up get_iplayer from the Start menu and I had a shell with get_iplayer primed and ready.
The even better part about the new installer is that it now supports get_iplayer updates from the menu, which is good news because the release frequency is higher than the average. The update only usually takes a second or two because you are no longer forced to re-download the whole installer again – only the perl script. I suppose it might be worth looking for installer updates now and then in case you want updated support packages.